what cf cards do you use?

[sbloomer]

52x is the speed that the data is written to the CF card. Just like your CD burner. The first ones where something like 4x as fast as real time and the one I have now is 48x as fast.

What is "4x as fast as real time??"

Actually, 1x is 150KB/sec so 10x is 1500KB/sec and 40x is 6MB/sec. Comes from the initial speeds that data was read from the first CD-ROMs.

Also bear in mind that read and write speeds are almost always different and the ratings are READ speeds, not write speeds. Always check the write specs of the card before buying.

Simon

Simon

 

[Jason B]

I would think that if one is shooting jpegs and using an external strobe (which needs to re-charge between shots), card speed would be a non-issue.
Composition alone takes time which should also make up for the card write speed. Snap shots can be fired off in rapid succession...photographs, they take time to set-up.

 

[hvulin]

yes but some people shoot raw images and this can be VERY big, so write times do matter...

btw. I have one 256, one 128 and one 32M...

 

[sbloomer]

I would think that if one is shooting jpegs and using an external strobe (which needs to re-charge between shots), card speed would be a non-issue.
Composition alone takes time which should also make up for the card write speed. Snap shots can be fired off in rapid succession...photographs, they take time to set-up.

Your point is noted. However, I very much doubt whether anyone in this forum uses their camera for UW use only. For general purpose use the faster the card the better. The proviso is that Canon say for the non-DSLR cameras anything more that 40x is not really necessary - even for those that can shoot RAW

 

[Jason B]

Photos taken are not sent directly to the memory card. They are first stored in a buffer. The whole purpose of this buffer is to speed up the time between shots. Most current digital cameras have large buffer and can shoot as fast as a film camera.
It's mainly the individual cameras buffer location (before or after processing stage) that determines continuous shooting speed.

 

[Jason B]

Here are a few quotes from some other websites.

"Burst depth, or the number of frames a camera can record in an extended sequence, varies widely between camera models. This is because the resolution of each camera, and the amount of internal buffer memory, also varies widely."

The buffer size in the camera is an important thing. It tells how many images you can take in quick succession. If you have a tiny buffer in your camera, you will have to wait a bit after you take several images.

The speed and number of shots a digicam can take in one burst is dependent on the amount of internal memory the camera has, the image size selected and the amount of compression applied.

 

[lukeROB]

Buffers, are all good but RAW images are large enough to quickly fill a buffer. It is the write time to get the data out of the buffer that matters. But seriously in these small digital camera's as stated somewhere else in this post, even a 8X write speed is 1200 kB/s. Manufactures are not going to have super expensive processors to write much faster than this anyway (this is one reason SLRs are a lot more expensive).

You can do a visual test, put a fast card (48X) in take a photo watch how long it takes to store it by the flashing light. Put a slower card (16X) in and do the same if the difference is much more than half a second I'd be very surprised.

Just my 2-cents.

 

[sbloomer]

Photos taken are not sent directly to the memory card. They are first stored in a buffer. The whole purpose of this buffer is to speed up the time between shots. Most current digital cameras have large buffer and can shoot as fast as a film camera.
It's mainly the individual cameras buffer location (before or after processing stage) that determines continuous shooting speed.

Nobody is questioning the fact that buffer size is important, but in light of the original question, so what?

The interaction between buffer and card in a camera is the same as that between memory and disk in a PC. Once the buffer (or memory) is full the speed of the card (or disk) is directly related to performance. Writing from buffer is the same as paging out in a PC. Yes, the size of the buffer determines how often the card is written to (or how many paging operations take place in a PC). In a PC the faster the disk the better the performance. However, where this analogy breaks down is that memory cards are significantly faster than a hard disk (or a Microdrive). As a result the difference in speeds between buffer and card are much smaller. The faster the card the better your performance once the buffer is full. As per a discussion I had with Canon, this is why, on their cheaper cameras there is little point in purchasing cards in excess of 6MB/sec, because this matches the read speed of their buffer. There is no point in exceeding the buffer read speed because the camera is simply incapable of writing anything away faster than that.

I know the point you are trying to make is that it doesn't actually matter, which to a certain extent is true. However, you can't generalize because you don't know what the primary thinking behind the question was. My advice is that one must always check the specs of the equipment they are trying to match up (card and camera etc) before making any significant capital outlay.

 

[alcina]

Just my two cents, but 256 are a waste of time!! Go for 512 minimum...1GB if you can afford it.

As to going to smaller cards so you don't lose data if something crashes...I've said it once and I'll say it again - every photo I shoot is valuable to me. This is false economy/safety. If I lost a 256 card I would be just as gutted as if I lost a 512 card. But I'd be P*ssed if I ran out of room on a card during a dive and missed something!

Change cards between dives or at least download after each dive day to minimize what you can lose. A lost dive is a lost dive - whether you have 10 photos or 100 photos. Cards are cheap in the long run...and if you don't have your laptop or a portable storage device I'll bet you can find someone who will do it for you onto CD or DVD in Cozumel for a small fee. I'll be there from 28 Aug - 11 Sept and would be glad to do it

 

[alcina]

You can do a visual test, put a fast card (48X) in take a photo watch how long it takes to store it by the flashing light. Put a slower card (16X) in and do the same if the difference is much more than half a second I'd be very surprised.
Just my 2-cents.

I have a Viking 512 card of indeterminite speed - I suspect it is a 12x or 16x. It can take up to 13 seconds (yikes!!) to write a RAW file. I have learned to deal with this and it is only frustrating sometimes now. A friend has a 32x Lexar with the same camera and gets 3 - 4 second write times. Cards do vary and it does matter...it's why I am tossing the 512's and going 1gb faster cards. It may be more than just the listed "write" speed, though...